As well as going after $6.7 billion in its omnibus savings bill, it could go after the billions more it costs to run our immigration detention centres: $9.2 billion in the past three years, $3.9 billion to $5.5 billion in the next four, according to the most complete accounting yet of the costs normally hidden in inaccessible parts of the budget.

It comes as an Audit Office report identifies the cost per offshore detainee: a gobsmacking $573,100 per year.

For that price - $1570 per day - we could put them up in a Hyatt and pay them the pension 15 times over.

It costs less than half that, $200,000 a year, to house a typical onshore prisoner; a mere fraction of that, $72,000 including super, to pay a typical full-time worker, and just $20,700 a year to pay a full pensioner.

Ninety-nine per cent of the population don't come anywhere near $573,100 a year in income or cost. The census stops asking when income sails past $156,000.

But the comparison with wages isn't strictly valid. It understates the outrageousness of the $573,100 price tag.

The $573,100 isn't being paid in return for a detainee's labour, in return for a contribution to society, as are wages.

It is being paid to prevent the detainee contributing to society.

It is what economists call a deadweight loss.

We get nothing in return for it, apart from less of what we could have had.

And perhaps because it is not meant to make economic sense (and perhaps because the Department of Immigration and Border Protection has operated as something of a law unto itself), it hasn't even made financial sense.

The Audit Office says the department breached public service guidelines by not conducting proper tenders for the contracts to provide services to Manus Island and Nauru, at times falsely claiming it faced urgent and unforeseen circumstances. Continue reading

Sources

• The Sydney Morning Herald article by Peter Martin, economics editor of The Age
• Image: France 24, The Observers

"The Australian Border Force Act, supported by the ALP and opposed only by the Greens, effectively turns the Department of Immigration into a secret security organisation with police powers."

Under the Act, it is a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment of up to two years, for any person working directly or indirectly for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to reveal to the media or any other person or organisation anything that happens in detention centres like the one on Manus Island.

Section 42 of the Act is entitled "Secrecy".

It provides that a person who is an "entrusted person" commits an offence if he or she makes a record of, or discloses, what is termed protected information.

An "entrusted person" is defined in the Act to mean not only government employees, but also a consultant or contractor.

"Protected information" means any information that a person comes across while working for, or in, detention centres.

Barns said the effect of these provisions will be to deter individuals such as doctors, counsellors, and others who have voiced publicly their concerns about the conditions endured by asylum seekers in detention centres from collecting information about those conditions and then raising their concerns in the community via the media.

Source

• probonoaustralia.com.aus
• asopa.typepad.com
• Image: Kerrie Leishman/TheAge

Sydney archdiocese executive director of Catholic schools Dan White said these schools have a long-standing tradition of encouraging students to engage with social justice issues.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a "remarkable" student activism is emerging the city's Catholic schools.

Last month, students from Bethlehem College in Ashfield sat in public view in their school yard with tapes marked by their student numbers across their mouths.

Provocative images of refugees hung from their necks and school blazers.

The students did this every day for a week, during their lunch hour.

Elizabeth Moodey, Bethlehem College's religious education coordinator, said the event was a pivotal moment for many of her young students.

"They stood in the cage in the centre of the city and they saw all of these adults walking past, not even taking any interest in what was going on," she said.

The girls told her they "felt like nothing, no one cared, and that's what these people feel like in detention centres".

While the school has not experienced any great pushback from parents, it has received a number of dissenting emails from members of the public.

"They ask why a Catholic school is being a part of it," Ms Moodey said.

"And our general response is that it is because we're a Catholic school and these are our Catholic values."

Students at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, where Tony Abbott went to school, sent the Australian Prime Minister a letter last year condemning his asylum-seeker policies, which, they argued, did not fit with Jesuit ideals.

On August 19, the Australian government announced the release of 150 asylum seeker children from detention centres on the Australian mainland.

But about 340 children held in offshore locations were not eligible.

A further 1547 children held in mainland community detention centres will be looked at case by case.

The announcement came days before the Australian immigration minister was due to face a human rights inquiry.

Sydney archdiocese schools have also pledged to provide free schooling to all refugee children who are in their schools.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• Reuters
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

It has rejected of the recommendation made by the United Nations Human Rights Council to rule out the transfer of asylum seekers to detention centers in third countries.

This is one of the 34 recommendations that have been rejected, out the total of 121 made by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after the UN States' Universal Periodic Review's (UPR).

Intelligence supplied to the Government confirms New Zealand is increasingly being talked up by people smugglers as a destination for asylum seekers.

New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key, recently said said revelations about desperate asylum seekers paying thousands of dollars to reach New Zealand by boat were no surprise.

Listen to interview with John Key.

Last year New Zealand's parliament passed legislation late on a Thursday allowing it to detain groups of more than 30 asylum seekers for up to six months.

At that time Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse said, "This legislation is about ensuring our system can handle a mass arrival should one occur and sending a clear message to potential people-smuggling ventures that New Zealand is not a soft touch."

When they met in Wellington at the beginning of June, the bishops of Oceania upheld their solidarity "boat people," urging a "more humane approach" to their situation.

Stressing that "boat people are real people," Bishop Eugene Hurley of Darwin, Australia, remarked that "the giving of sanctuary has always been one of the noblest of human endeavors."

He warned of the use of language to dehumanize those seeking asylum, noting that while they are called "queue jumpers," there is no discussion of how to form orderly lines when one is fleeing war-torn Sri Lanka and Syria.

The bishop went on to call the offshore detention centers "factories for mental illness," saying their use is "devoid of logic, fairness, and compassion."

"The UN Human Rights Council adopted the outcome of New Zealand's second review of New Zealand's human rights record on Thursday 19 June in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a relatively new UN mechanism that aims at reviewing a country's human rights performance every 4-5 years. New Zealand was under review for the first time in 2009 and was again reviewed in January 2014.

Source

• The Sunday Times
• Pacific Scoop
• news.24.com
• CNA
• Image: cdn.24.co.za

The The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands has consistently spoken against offshore processing in PNG of asylum seekers who are seeking asylum in Australia.

When the Manus detention centre was reopened in the context of a deal with the Australian government the Bishops protested in the strongest terms.

They questioned the legality, in the light of the PNG Constitution's protection of freedom (section 42), of bringing people who have not broken of the nation's laws, into the country and imprisoning them.

"Detaining people against their will in PNG, even if it "works" as a deterrent is not a just solution worthy of a great nation otherwise proud of its human rights record. It clearly places an intolerable strain on the capacity of Papua New Guinea to manage, and might lead to even more deaths, injury and trauma. Close the centre and manage the problem in Australia."

Read Full Statement

Source

• Supplied: Fr. Victor Roche, SVD, General Secretary Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

Last month however, the Federal Government announced that Leonora's detention centre - along with three other centres on Australia's mainland - would close by the end of February.

For Good Samaritan Sister, Annette Dever, a parish pastoral worker in the communities of Leonora, Laverton and Leinster since 2003, the presence of the asylum seekers has been positive and enriching for the broader community.

It's also had a "great impact" on her.

"Their presence will be part of this town forever. They're history now; they've been here and they've been part of this town."

"They will stay in my heart forever. I'll pray for them especially, and of course, all other asylum seekers as well."

Annette said the asylum seekers reminded her of "the silent neighbour at our door".

"We don't know them very well - the silent neighbour - but God is asking us to be aware of them," she explained. Continue reading.

Source: The Good Oil

Image: The Good Oil

Salvation Army spokesman Paul Moulds says women and children should not be sent yet, because asylum seekers are sleeping in tents while the compound is under construction.

"We certainly would be keen to see more development happen with facilities prior to that happening," he said.

"But at the end of the day, that's not our decision, and I'm sure that the intention is that the facilities are developed far further before that happens."

Major Moulds says asylum seekers have been confined to the compound, but expects they will soon be able to move around the island.

"That's certainly the intention. It's only days since the first arrival has been received," he said.

"We're starting to plan activities, we've started our first English-type classes and that was great, they loved that.

"So at the moment it's basically just looking after people and making them feel as welcome and comfortable as they can in situations which are not the ideal but which will get better."

Source

• PINA
• Image: The Telegraph

On Thursday The Australian reported Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has been given the authority to put the Nauru detention centre on the table in talks with the Opposition aimed at ending the stand-off over offshore processing.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has welcomed reports that the Government will consider reopening the Nauru detention centre - he said he still needed a proposal in writing before he could enter into talks with the Government.

Abbott ruled out doing a deal which would include offshore processing in Malaysia and said he also wanted the Government to adopt his temporary protection visas policy.

He said any talks should be between himself and Julia Gillard, not between Mr Bowen and his Coalition counterpart Scott Morrison.

On Sunday, in his first public comments in support of processing asylum-seekers outside Australia, Cardinal Pell said that an offshore regime may be the only viable way to prevent refugees from being exploited by human-trafficking syndicates. "It's difficult to see any alternative to the government and opposition promptly agreeing on effective offshore deterrents. Australians do not want more tragedies like this."

Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, is known for his sympathy for refugees, condemning prime minister John Howard in 2001 over his "mean and excessively harsh" efforts to deter boat arrivals.

Source

• The Herald Sun
• The Australian
• 7 News
• The Daily Telegraph Australia
• Image: The New York Times

Nauru's decision to sign the convention bolsters Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's calls to recommence offshore processing of asylum seekers in the island's mothballed detention centre.

The Australian Labour Government has ruled out returning to Nauru, choosing instead to press ahead with a bid to resurrect its controversial Malaysian people swap deal.

"She (Julia Gillard) now claims Nauru is unsuitable for offshore processing because it will not help the Government break 'the people smuggling business model'. If she really believes Nauru could not work, how could she ever have thought East Timor would work?" says law professor and Jesuit priest Frank Brennan.

"If her trusted advisers are now telling her Nauru will not work, there is no way they could ever have told her East Timor would work. East Timor would have become a honeypot for asylum seekers in Indonesia catching the ferry to West Timor and making their way by land to the East Timor processing centre, asking for fast track processing to Australia. It was always an absurd idea."

Source

• Pina
• Eureka Street
• Image: Herald Sun

The Australian opposition leader has refused to support either of the Government's versions of amendments which would have made a Malaysian deal lawful, and offered a third - his own.

Like Labour's, it is designed to accommodate a recent High Court ruling which blocked processing of boat people in third countries.

Abbott's amendments, which he was scheduled to take to his back benchers on Monday evening, would restrict off-shore processing to countries which had signed the UN Convention on Refugees, which would disqualify Malaysia.

In effect, that meant Nauru, which always had been the Opposition's preferred option.

Abbott said the Coalition still believed it could pursue its Nauru plan without legislative change, but wanted to work constructively with the government to put offshore processing beyond doubt.

"Let me make it crystal clear that we don't believe that the High Court decided the other week Nauru is ruled out and indeed the Solicitor-General confirmed Nauru was a viable option under the High Court's decision in our briefing on Friday," Mr Abbott said.

"But we do want to, as far as is reasonable, put these things beyond legal dispute and that's why we've put forward an alternative which is not open to legal disputation."

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the Federal Government will oppose the Coalition's proposed amendment

The Australian Catholic Bishops continue to favour on-shore processing of refugees. "As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, our proposal is that people be welcomed within the community and their claims for refugee status be processed within the community," said Father Maurizio Pettenà, director of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office.

Listen to interview with Fr Pettenà

Source

• News.com.au
• The Australian
• Image: Perth Now

Refugee groups have accused the Solomon Islands of simply being money hungry by offering to house asylum seekers for Australia. Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says the Federal Government needs to ignore the request: "I'm surprised that Australia would have any compunction about considering the political state when searching for a place to dump Asylum Seekers" she said.

Source

• PINA
• The Austalian
• www.yourstation.com.au
• Image -article.wn.com